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My father is 75 years old now and his memory comes and goes. Around 1957 he was called up from the Indiana National Guard to the full time Army. He was based at Fort Knox Kentucky for the rest of his duration with the Army, he never left the states.

He said that while stationed at Fort Knox and during training at Fort Benning , he never heard anything negative about the M1 or M2 Carbine, other than trying to use it like a M1 Garand.

His thought is that at proper range the M1 or M2 Carbine wouldn't have a problem , but that's his opinion.

I'll just weigh in now, my Great Uncle Dale Pence severed in WW2 with the rifle and felt it was good enough to patrol and clear houses in WW2 Europe as did his company. My Uncle served with the rifle in Korea, if the carbine was the reason they got overrun then I don't what to say.

My father was around Korean war vets while in the army.

Memories will vary, some vets will like the Carbine some will hate it.
 
Oh, FWIW - I forgot to mention, my carbine pictured above in post #94 is not a USGI, it's a Plainfield, a commercial brand made in the 70's. It has an Ultimak aluminum handguard with a Picatinney rail on it, and it's quite accurate. At least as accurate as me, probably better.
 
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Dusting off this thread.

Don't know if this more an example of the .30 Carbine cartridge's penetrating capabilities or rather an example of the shoddy construction of 1960's manufactured housing, but there is no safe place to hide within a disused house trailer from Carbine fire at 300 yards. When I was a kid I was given opportunity to shoot up a mobile home from that distance. Penetration was uniformly through and through. Any interior walls, closet doors, the back of an old couch ... didn't matter.

I've come to the conclusion that so much of the .30 Carbine's poor stopping reputation against soldiers in heavy clothing in Korea and elsewhere was due to poor shooting, bad hits and outright misses rather than a fundamental shortcoming on the part of the cartridge.
 
I didn't go all the way back through this thread to read whether I had posted this before, but I have a cool old book about the M1 Carbine in combat somewhere.

The book is made up entirely of letters from the military men issued the rifles in WWII and Korea - some to their superiors, and some back home. It is broken up into two sections; the Army and the USMC.

Overwhelmingly the Army GIs were negative about the rifle and told all sorts of stories about how ineffective it was. Almost to a man, the USMC praised the handy carbine, the greater amount of ammo they could carry, its effectiveness in close quarters, and its surprising range and accuracy.
 
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My dad fought with an M1 Carbine on Iwo Jima. While he never spoke of combat, he said it never let him down, and he was in the middle of the big Banzai charge. His brothers also carried carbines in the Pacific. I carried one much of my 20+ years as an LEO as a trunk weapon. I even nailed a 200 pound Blacktail deer at 100 yards with a single heart/lung shot with my carbine. While I have other weapons (AR15 and Mini-30) my primary HD gun is my Quality Hardware CMP M1 Carbine, loaded with Hornady Critical Defense 110 polymer tips, Nuff said...
 
part of the perception of the .30 carbine round might be from when people started hunting deer with them. down here they were called "hole punchers" because even the soft point bullets wouldnt open up much. not a whole lot different than using hardball ammo. the deer would run off and die later. but I think that was a problem with bullet design not the caliber. with today's bullets I'm sure it would have been a different story. M1 carbines are cool little rifles. I just wish I would have bought one of those "hole punchers" when they were cheaper than a Mosin is now.
I dropped a 200 pound Blacktail deer at 100 yards with a single heart/lung shot from my M1 Carbine, using a 110 R-P JSP,. It jumped 30 feet, and then was DRT. Exit hole I could stick half my fist in.... The bullet leaves the muzzle at 1950 fps, and generates about 950 ft lbs Muzzle energy. At 100 yards, it has as much ME as a 44 mag from a pistol at the muzzle.
 
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